American Airlines drops 3 routes, pulls out of Duluth
Edward Russell Is a Senior Aviation Business Reporter at The Points Guy. Edward joined the TPG team in June 2019 after seven years at FlightGlobal.
Feb. 24, 2020
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4 min read
American Airlines drops 3 routes, pulls out of Duluth
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American Airlines will end service to Duluth, Minnesota, plus routes to two other cities citing financial losses in all of the markets.
The Oneworld alliance carrier will end its twice-daily flights between Chicago O'Hare (ORD) and Duluth (DLH) on April 27, American confirmed and Cirium schedules show. It has operated the route with 50-seat Embraer ERJ-145 jets since May 2019.
“The route was not profitable, and we always evaluate our network based on supply and demand," American spokeswoman Nichelle Barrett told TPG.
American's exit from Duluth will leave just Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, as well as Sun Country Airlines' Landline buses, serving the northern Minnesota city.
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Duluth International ticketing lobby (opened 2013), by RS&H. #airportarchitecture
American will also end two other loss-making routes this spring. Service between Chicago and Charleston, West Virginia (CRW), and New York LaGuardia (LGA) and Bermuda (BDA) will end on April 27 and May 30, respectively, Cirium shows. The Charleston route is flown daily with a Bombardier CRJ200, and the Bermuda route on Saturdays with a Boeing 737-800.
The airline will continue to serve Charleston from Charlotte (CLT), Philadelphia (PHL) and Washington Reagan National (DCA), according to Cirium. American flies to Bermuda from its hubs in Charlotte, Miami (MIA), New York John F. Kennedy (JFK), Philadelphia, Washington National.
Barrett told TPG that the decision to end the Charleston and Duluth flights was not related to American's having to remove four small regional jets earlier than expected due to the Boeing 737 MAX grounding.
American plans to grow system capacity by 4-5% year-over-year in 2020, depending on when the MAX returns to service.
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Related: American Airlines to park regional jets as 737 MAX grounding drags on
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